But Ravenna, she was a piece of work. She had enough issues that all the therapy in the world wouldn’t help her. One time, we raided her warehouse in the city of Ostrogoth to complete a quest chain that gave the Lords special privileges in the human kingdoms. What we found was that the nutjob had been ‘experimenting’ on PCs and NPCs alike. Meaning live dissections. The kind of thing serial killers would have squirmed at. If she was in a place like AAO…
“So, the bitch heard that Travelers could be made into slaves, and I guess being a Necro, she decided to start testing those powers?”
Hrozne sighed. “Right in one. It hasn’t made it big on the forums since there are only a couple dozen of us who chose home-born Drow as our starters so far, but as far as I know, I’m the last Traveler that started as a Drow in the Underdark that isn’t one of her undead pets. And even if they’re destroyed, they return as an undead under her control.”
I grimaced. That wasn’t good. Not good at all. “How did she get so much power, so fast? I thought creating permanent undead, or at least ones that had any use, took a good deal of material components.”
“It does. One of the noble houses sees the ‘benefits’ of undead cannon fodder with the abilities of Travelers, who return from being destroyed still bound to their necromancer. She’s entered into a partnership with them, made easier because she’s a Priestess of Lolth. They help with her experiments, and she helps them fight.”
“And how’d you wind up here, instead of her thrall?”
“When she started turning the rest of our group, I split, trying to escape her clutches before the same happened to me. Along the way, I met a follower of Elistraee. We had the idea to make it to the surface, warn the kingdoms of what was going on, and hopefully get out of Kali’s reach.”
“And then?”
“We managed to get to this fortress before Kali could catch up to us, but the House had used magic to communicate ahead of us. We split up, to try and maximize the chances that one of us would break through and warn the surface of the coming trouble. If you’re here, can I hope that Tolthe made it through?”
I shook my head. “He managed to disguise himself as part of a raid Kali led on a nearby elven village.” I briefly described what happened at Ullelone, and saw Hrozne shudder at the mention of the black mist. “We were already headed to the dungeon, so while others track down and eliminate the undead, we need to put that bitch down.”
“Any ideas on how to do that? She is a Traveler, after all. Even if we kill her, she’ll be back.”
I sighed, and then said, “There may be a way. But I’ll need to get to Kali, and convince her to at least speak instead of trying to kill us off the bat. Even then, the risks are not small. Short of getting admins to ban her, like we did in WoD whenever she stepped over the line, or enslaving her myself, it is the only way. But there aren’t any rules being broken for the Admins to ban her for, and I don’t trust that bitch anywhere near my girls.”
I ignored the confused looks from Hrozne and the girls. Yukiko, it seemed, had an inkling of what I was considering, and was glaring daggers at me. I didn’t like the idea much, either, but this was the only way. Without another word, I turned, and led the way out of the room. Time to hunt a psycho.
*****
Thankfully, Hrozne had been through enough of the fortress to give us basic map data. Compared with my own maps, we had a good general layout of the fortress, or at least this floor. But a group of eight could only move so quickly and still maintain any degree of stealth, so it was slow going. My stealth skills went up a lot due to all the sneaking around, which was good, since I’d been doing ‘open’ battles for so long that I had really neglected them. At some point, I was going to have to do some serious skill grinding. Only my Sword Mastery and Seduction skills had gotten to ‘Advanced’, though I now had several skills in ‘Intermediate’. But many of my skills were still in ‘Beginner’.
That was an issue for another time, however. As we eliminated another patrol as silently as possible, I sighed, and looked to my two captive Drowesses. “Where is Kali hiding? Speak.”
They glared at me, as they had been since I gave them their new ‘accessories’, but I didn’t care about that. Vashti struggled against the compulsion, but said, “Her rooms are on the lowest level, next to the altar. She’s taken over as the priestess of the dark shrine.”
“How many people are likely to be in the shrine?”
Enania glared, and said, “None, at this time. But wait a while, and you’ll get to star in one of the rituals.”
I looked at Enania, and smiled, “For that, you aren’t getting lube tonight.” The newcomers looked puzzled, if not at my words, then at the cringe my girls made at the thought. I was going to have fun punishing the two Drowesses, but that would have to wait until we were someplace a lot safer. But still, the wench’s words brought something to mind, and I checked the interface for my Dark Portal spell, and saw that the ‘Scheming Caverns’ had been listed as one of the dark shrines I had visited before. Seems that I didn’t need to know I was in a dark shrine, so long as I physically went there, and was conscious at the time.
I took a breath, and said, “All right, Vashti, Enania, you are forbidden from speaking, except to warn me or the party about threats, unless I ask you a specific question. You will fight to your utmost to protect myself and the rest of my party. Understand?” They both nodded, so I turned my attention to the rest of the group. “Seems the stupid bitch took me to the shrine to interrogate me. Probably was going to do some ritual before I pissed her off too much. She didn’t appreciate it when I said she was hiding in the dark because she was fat and ugly.”
Della shook her head, “Master, only you would say that to a woman in that sort of situation.”
I grinned. “Point is, though, that I can open a portal there, so we can try and decapitate this menace before things get out of hand.”
“We’ll be leaving a lot of potential reinforcements between us and the door if you do that, Master.”
“True, but we only have a little time before they discover we’re missing. I’d rather not fight Kali with her full group of guards. Or give her a chance to run away.” The others nodded reluctantly at this. After all, the last dungeon would have been a lot easier if we could have skipped the whole fighting through seven layers of sins thing, and just taken out the leader.
Seeing no one disagree with my logic, I took a breath, and opened a Dark Portal to the bottom of the dungeon. Yes, it was a cheat, but then, the stupid bitch should have thought about the dangers of bringing live Travelers to the bottom of a dungeon. What did she think would happen, that we’d just sit around and wait until we became her undead?
I shook off the thoughts as we stepped through the portal. This time, we had light sources ready, including magic lanterns that floated nearby. Looking around, I could see that this shrine was clearly dedicated to Lolth, the Spider Queen. Fortunately, the portal was largely soundless, and so our arrival was unmarked. Well, unmarked by any sentient being.
Unfortunately, the wide hall had ten giant spiders inside it, situated on the weblike structures. None too pleased with the presence of nondrow in the shrine (or the lights we brought with us), they leaped in to attack. They were only level 20 each, more ceremonial guardians than anything else, but they served to make an effective amount of racket before they died, which sounded the alarm.
From one of the side chambers, a wild-eyed, half-dressed drow female ran out, with four zombies trailing in her wake.
Kali Dorna
Drow Elf Female
Level 40 Legion Lord (Necromancer) / Priestess
Titles: Sadist, Lichloved, Spiderkissed, Calamity, Elfslayer, Manslayer, Womanslayer
As I thought, the woman was Kali, who was none too pleased to see us in her sanctum, killing her spiders. But it looks like we caught her unawares, since she was unarmored, and only had a wicked looking dagger in her hand. She was also half-naked, like she had hastily thrown on some clothes. G
iven that the only ones that came out of her room with her were zombies, I didn’t want to know what they were up to.
Zaor Naezenna
Drow Elf Zombie Male
Level 20 Fighter / Ranger
Titles: Deathsworn
Dakath Kelleth
Drow Elf Zombie Male
Level 10 Mage
Titles: Deathsworn
Hycis Enynore
Drow Elf Zombie Female
Level 23 Rogue / Ranger
Titles: Deathsworn
Tiatha Fayaurus
Drow Elf Zombie Female
Level 30 Fire Sorceress / Priestess
Titles; Deathsworn
The other wretches were all half-dressed as well, and clearly zombies. Worse, it looked like these were some of the players that Kali had enslaved, as I was immediately bombarded by pleas for help in the area chat. Of course NPCs wouldn’t see that, but for Yukiko, Hrozne, and myself, it became clear in an instant what was going on. Apparently, enslaving her prey as undead wasn’t enough, but Kali got off on ‘enjoying’ herself with them like they were glorified dildos. But because they were zombies, they didn’t even get to feel pleasure! Worse, it seemed that they were the lucky ones who had finally died after her ‘playtime’ in torture chambers, just like in WoD, but worse.
Now, no one could accuse me of being a ‘hero’ or ‘champion of justice’ in this game, but there were some things I didn’t care for. People trying to turn everyone into the legion of the undead under her thrall was one of them. The sick torture chambers I knew Kali had hidden around her somewhere were another. But mainly, she had attacked me and mine, and that meant there was going to be no mercy.
Stepping forward so that Kali could see me clearly, I called out, “Kali Dorna, by the contract of Terms and Regulations laid down by Icestorm, I challenge you to the Demon’s Duel!”
Chapter 45 – Demon’s Duel
Sometimes, people have what might be described as ‘irreconcilable differences’. When that happens, often the only way to keep things civil, rather than a spiral of PKs drawing in friends and allies on both sides and just keeping the hate going, is to have a formal, system-approved duel.
There were two levels of official duels in Age of Anarchy Online. The first was basically the same as fighting in the rest of the world or the arena. You fought until someone’s HP dropped below half, they surrendered, or they died, depending on the settings of the duel. There was no death penalty for dying in a normal duel, unlike when you died in the rest of the world.
The second level was the ‘Demon’s Duel’, and it was a holdover from WoD. Even there, not many people used it, because of the, frankly, insane risks involved. First, win or lose, the person issuing a challenge to a Demon’s Duel had to pay 1000 GP immediately upon issuing the challenge. But that wasn’t much, especially when you got to high levels. The real kicker of the Demon’s Duel was the fact that the death penalty if you lost was decided by your opponent. And yeah, all Demon’s Duels were to the death. Upon the challenge being laid, and the challenger paying the fee, both players wrote down their desired death penalty for their opponent, and sealed them. If you won, you’d never know what your opponent wrote down, unless they told you later. If you lost, the duel announced your fate in a global announcement.
Now, obviously, this had the potential for massive abuse. Because of that, there were restrictions on who you could challenge. First, you could only issue one Demon’s Duel challenge per RL month. Second, you could only challenge the same character once per RL year. Third, your character had to be within 10 levels of the character you challenged. Fourth, all death penalties were checked by the admins (unlike most of what happened in AAO), so anyone trying to, say, use a Demon’s Duel to get someone’s RL address would be permanently banned, whether they won or lost the duel. In the sixteen in-game years I’d played World of Destiny, there were only seven Demon’s Duels performed. I’d fought in two of them, one as the challenger.
As soon as the 100 PP deleted itself from my purse, the challenge screen appeared before me.
Zayn Darkmore has challenged Kali Dorna to the Demon’s Duel! As Challenger Zayn has paid 1000 GP as required by the terms and conditions of the EULA, this challenge may not be refused. Both players may decide on the death penalty for their opponent should they prove victorious. The death penalty may be anything, up to and including character deletion. Death penalties may not affect your opponent’s Struggle.net account or reveal any financial or personal information about the player. Attempts to do so will result in a permanent ban from all Icestorm products.
Enter your opponent’s death penalty now:
Smiling, I typed in what I wanted to happen to Kali if she lost. While sputtering with obvious rage, Kali did the same. Once she was finished, another screen popped up in front of the two of us.
Processing death penalties…
Both players have selected allowable death penalties, as per the EULA.
That was quickly followed by a screen that showed up to everyone in the room.
ATTENTION!
A Demon’s Duel has been declared by Zayn Darkmore, challenging Kali Dorna. This duel will be to the death. There is no restriction on spells or abilities. No other creatures may participate in this duel unless summoned via magic. The contestants will be summoned to the Duel Arena in 3… 2… 1…
There was a bright light, and suddenly I was in the familiar Duel Arena. When you fought an official duel, you and your opponent were transported to this open Coliseum made of weathered stone and with a sand floor, with a few stone columns and broken walls here and there, and no innocent bystanders to get in the way. The reason was simple. This gave all (well, most) classes the best chance to shine. Wizards often couldn’t unleash their most powerful attacks indoors, because massive fireballs tend to cook everyone indiscriminately. Warriors didn’t like having people who could be used as shields by their enemies. Rogues and Rangers enjoyed the places to hide and prepare a sneak attack or snipe with arrows. The ‘sunlight’ in the arena didn’t even hurt Drow, vampires, and other types that disliked sunlight. Really, the only people who didn’t have some benefit in this field were ‘face’ classes, like Bards. And they sucked at duels, anyways.
Of course, there WERE people who got put at a big disadvantage due to the terms of the duel. Kali was already cursing because her undead were still back in the room we just got transported from. Sure, I didn’t have my pets or Hrozne with me, but then, I was a jack-of-all-trades character. I could still fight without support. Kali, being both a necromancer and priestess, was focused on using her minions rather than fighting herself. And she knew it.
“I am going to rip you to shreds.”
“Aw, is that any way to greet old friends, Ravenna?”
Her eyes sharpened at that name. “Who are you, and why do you know that name?”
I laughed, and said, “You haven’t changed after all this time. Still a sick little girl playing at torture for kicks. I kicked your ass a couple times, back in WoD, back when I was a ‘good guy’. Remember the name Torgan? Well, I might not be him any longer, but that just means your spanking is going to be a lot more personal this time.”
She sputtered, and then launched into a string of very creative curses in four languages (including Russian, for some reason). I said nothing in response to her, though I did note some of the curses for future use. I couldn’t bother with her words now. Instead, I concentrated as the system counted down to the start of the duel. We were twenty feet apart, and Kali was armed with her dagger, and only the barest of robes. I was in my full armor, wielding my two blades. But I knew better than to get complacent. Kali was higher level than I was, and had a twisted cunning to her. I had no intention of underestimating her.
When the signal to begin came, we both started moving. Kali was clearly still just as practiced at PvP as Ravenna had been in WoD, and knew that a mage couldn’t stand up to a swordsman in close combat, so she began launching spells at me as
she ran for cover. Of course, I wasn’t idle either. I snapped off Euphoria as soon as the duel started, and was rewarded to see Kali stumble slightly as she dived towards a wall where she could take cover and launch her spells. Not a bad plan, against most people.
I was not most people. Her spells were hastily cast, and I didn’t even need to bother dodging more than one of them. That wasn’t a bad idea, trying to keep my head down while she got to cover. It was a tried and true tactic in games and real life. But I’d had sixteen years of game-time to master the physics of virtual worlds. Including the bonuses from my gear, my STR was 141 and my DEX was 152. While that was nothing compared to my 412 CHA, it was still impressive enough that I could break from ‘real’ physics in small ways.
I didn’t bother diving for cover of my own, or going around the wall to attack Kali, who was getting more distracted by the Euphoria spell by the second. No, I ran straight for the six-foot high wall, and jumped, landing on the wall with a grace I’d never have in real life, before doing a forward flip over the wall, my blades slashing out. Kali screamed, but this time in pain as her dagger fell to the sand, still clutched in her severed hand.
Rules-Free VRMMO Life: Volume IV: To the Deeps Page 6
